But as the news filtered in from NYC, I really couldn’t think about anything else.

The story that broke my heart was hearing about the NYU hospital evacuating the NICU and PICU (first) after backup generators failed. Warning-the video has trigger potential.

Four of the newborns were on respirators that were breathing for them, and when the power went out, each baby was carried down nine flights of stairs while a nurse manually squeezed a bag to deliver air to the baby’s lungs

I haven’t personally known many police officers or firefighters. I don’t know anyone who was a first responder.

But I have had a child depend on a machine to keep her alive. And I have spent hours sitting with nurses in an intensive care room as they monitored her. When people applaud doctors for their life saving actions (as I do as well), we often forget the nurses, who kept us sane at 2am as we sobbed. We forget that they were the ones to think of getting a special handmade blanket for our child, or a teddy bear. That they work incredibly long hours. And that if it were my child, they would’ve been the heroes saving her life.

I am deeply grateful for every first responder keeping people safe on the East Coast today. But I’m exceptionally grateful for the kind of person who becomes a nurse, and who would keep a sick baby breathing by manually pumping their oxygen down nine flights of stairs in the dark.

I am lucky. My friends and family in NYC are mostly accounted for, with the worst issue being lost power. But watching a city I’ve called home, and that I love, suffer through this storm is heartbreaking. I hope you and yours are safe.